You have to repair it. Do yourself a favor and call their dedicated CableCARD line. Don't go through the national Comcast 800 number or you'll be on hold forever.

When I called to repair mine, the call was answered by a real person (not a telephone tree voice system).

877-405-2298

thanks! I called the main comcast line and they could not get it activated...(they had no idea what they were doing..only asked for the cable card s/n) - hung up frustrated, found this thread, called that number and they had it working in 5 minutes.

No, you have to repair it. Comcast requires cards to be repaired when moved to a new unit. Or even if you change the hard drive (at least prior to Roamio; can't say for certain on the new units). And of course once you get it properly paired, it will authorize six streams instead of four.

I just got a new roamio and went down and picked up a new cable card.I wanted to keep the old one going for a while longer. Well when trying to activate it it did not work. I pulled it out of the other tivo and had comcast pair it to the new tivo. Still had some issues and a call to tivo got it all solved in a 3 way call. Seems the Comcast text did not un bind it from the original tivo.

Don't count on comcast having any body that knows what they are doing but i ended up reusing a cable card I had and returning the one I just picked up.

When I got my Premier Comcast insisted on a truck roll, and the tech couldn't get any of the cards he brought to pair because the equipment at the head end insisted they weren't valid Comcast cards (despite the fact he had just been given them at the warehouse that morning). He had to go and pick up some more before getting one that worked, so apparently Comcast tracks serial numbers or something in addition to wanting to pair with your specific device (and apparently they had very very poor inventory control :-).

There's your answer. I too have no premium channels and have run w/o pairing a self-installed (I got the first two prior to August 2011 and a Comcast was still requiring tech installs) CableCARD. However, THere were occasions when a channel change would result in the appearance of the CableCARD info screen, so I eventually had it paired.

Comcast had to roll a truck for my XL4 as well. Turns out the cablecard they gave me at the office was in their system as being installed in one of their own boxes, and if their computer shows its been paired to a comcast box, it wont work in a Tivo, until they clear the cablecard out of their system, and re-enter it. Very frustrating...but at least they were on time (on a Sunday no less), and didnt charge for the truck roll since it was their issue.

Comcast had to roll a truck for my XL4 as well. Turns out the cablecard they gave me at the office was in their system as being installed in one of their own boxes, and if their computer shows its been paired to a comcast box, it wont work in a Tivo, until they clear the cablecard out of their system, and re-enter it. Very frustrating...but at least they were on time (on a Sunday no less), and didnt charge for the truck roll since it was their issue.

I've had that happen and it's frustrating to say the least. In my case they claimed they didn't have the ability to remove it and re add it to the system which I'm skeptical about.

No, you have to repair it. Comcast requires cards to be repaired when moved to a new unit. Or even if you change the hard drive (at least prior to Roamio; can't say for certain on the new units). And of course once you get it properly paired, it will authorize six streams instead of four.

Yup. Told him he had to re-pair it in the post before (which he did). He was then asking if the same cable card could do more than two streams.

When I got my Premier Comcast insisted on a truck roll, and the tech couldn't get any of the cards he brought to pair because the equipment at the head end insisted they weren't valid Comcast cards (despite the fact he had just been given them at the warehouse that morning). He had to go and pick up some more before getting one that worked, so apparently Comcast tracks serial numbers or something in addition to wanting to pair with your specific device (and apparently they had very very poor inventory control :-).

I had that exact same experience and then once I did finally get a card to connect it failed in about a month. I had to make two trips to TWC store to finally get a well working M card.

I posted near the end of the thread (post #96). I had to call Comcast back after the card was paired at the tech support number (800-934-6489) rather than the cablecard number for help.

Basically I had to ask the tech if the "premier billing code" was on my account. When he put it on my account then VOD started working correctly. He may assume you have a Series 4 TiVo (Premier), but I told him I had a Series 5 which was newer.

I posted near the end of the thread (post #96). I had to call Comcast back after the card was paired at the tech support number (800-934-6489) rather than the cablecard number for help.

Basically I had to ask the tech if the "premier billing code" was on my account. When he put it on my account then VOD started working correctly. He may assume you have a Series 4 TiVo (Premier), but I told him I had a Series 5 which was newer.

I'm in Lake Forest Park.

Thank you for the information. I will call when I get home from work tonight.

Before you call I would suggest checking your equipment list on comcast.com. After signing in and selecting "My Services" on the horizontal menu on top, this is what I get (I have a Roamio Pro with Motorola CC and VOD is working fine for me right now and I have only one TV set up with Comcast):

In the equipment box on the right it lists my Voice/Data modem and some remote control info below. At the bottom is a "View More" button .. when I click on this it displays my "Cable Box" info which is actually my CC info since I don't have a box anymore:
Make & Model: MOTOROLA TIVOPMHST (plus s/n and mac info)

I think the TIVOPMHST may be the elusive "premier billing code" that is set even though I have it installed on a Roamio.

If you don't have that code, that could be the starting point with the CSR. If you do have the code, there may be more serious problems.